1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to improvements of a stuffing pump for use in an apparatus for manufacturing sausages or the like, and more particularly to improvements of a stuffing pump for metering and discharging a raw material of a food product, such as an emulsion product, a coarsely chopped or ground meat-like product, or the like which is a raw material of sausages or the like.
2. Description of the Related Art
Referring to FIG. 1, a description will be given hereafter of an overall structure of an apparatus for stuffing sausages or the like to which the present invention is applied.
In the drawing, a stuffing pump 1 meters and discharges into a stuffing nozzle 2 an emulsion-like or coarsely chopped or ground material to be stuffed. An unillustrated casing which is supplied from an accommodating box 3 is fitted over the stuffing nozzle 2. The casing stuffed with the material to be stuffed by the stuffing nozzle 2 is linked by a chuck 4 and a conveying device 5, and is suspended by a suspending device 7 via a guide 6.
The stuffing pump 1 in the above-described conventionally known apparatus for manufacturing sausages or the like meters and discharges a material to be stuffed of sausages or the like, and has the following structure as shown in FIG. 2.
Namely, a gear 11 serving as a rotor of a pump is provided inside a housing 13 for forming the stuffing pump 1, and a rotating shaft 12 for rotatively driving the gear 11 is provided. The rotating shaft 12 is supported in a cantilevered manner within the housing 13 with respect to the gear 11 by means of a rolling bearing 14 and a rolling bearing 15 which are provided between the rotating shaft 12 and the housing 13.
A cover 16 for covering an end portion of the rotating shaft 12 is fitted to the housing 13 to form a pump chamber.
With the above-described conventionally known stuffing pump, since the rotating shaft 12 is supported in a cantilevered manner with respect to the rotor 11, the following technical problems have been encountered.
Namely, the discharge pressure which occurs in the stuffing pump 1 varies substantially depending on the type of the material to be stuffed of sausages (coarsely chopped or ground material, emulsion, beef, pork, and oil) as well as the temperature of the material to be stuffed. An increase in the discharge pressure increases the deflection of the rotating shaft 12, with the result that there has been a problem in that the wear of the rolling bearing 14 and the rolling bearing 15 is promoted, or the gear 11 slides in contact with the housing 13, thereby causing the gear 11 and the housing 13 to become worn.
In addition, in a case where the length of the casing used is made long to improve productivity, the length of the stuffing nozzle 2 is also made long. However, the above-described deflection of the rotating shaft 12 also occurs in the case where, to improve productivity, the long stuffing nozzle 2 is used and the discharge rate of the stuffing pump 1 is increased by increasing the number of revolutions.
Thus, in the case where the conventionally known cantilevered rotating shaft 12 is used, if an attempt is made to improve productivity by using a long casing, or a stuffing raw material of a kind which is difficult to pass through the stuffing nozzle 2 is used, a drawback in durability is encountered.